


Their Consequences

by Imaginatio



Series: The Little Moments [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Communication, Coping, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Hiding Your True Feelings, Humor, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance and Keith help each other to cope, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mentioned Lance (Voltron)'s Family, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Not Really Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panik Attacks (mentioned), Teamwork, Worldbuilding, but he tries and gets better at them, just like lance, not between keith and lance, quite broken right now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imaginatio/pseuds/Imaginatio
Summary: Lance had always been genuine. Unapologetic about his happiness, about his passion for the things he loved.He had thought that would never change.Lately, he found himself putting on a mask instead. Sad or pissed off underneath the false smile and the fake laugh.He hated it.
Relationships: Eventually - Relationship, Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Voltron: Legendary Defender Team
Series: The Little Moments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767868
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	1. Exceptions

**Author's Note:**

> Alright listen. I am a very indecisive person. Meaning I will probably come back here and edit these chapters a LOT. So if you don't want to read a story that could change (only small things mostly, nothing plot changing) constantly, read this when it's finished. Which will only take another five years or so probably.
> 
> Well, have fun reading!

Rushing around another corner Lance didn’t register any of the Galra soldiers until they had already hit the floor. After making sure none of them would become a problem later, he quickly ducked inside the control room to extract the last of the data.

His comm cracked to life just as the download finished. “ _I’m on my way out. Lance, are you done yet?”_

Lance had to bite back his snappy retort at Keiths impatient tone as he leaned out the door, checking again for any stray Galra soldiers. When there were none, he dashed off into the direction of the Red Lion. “I’m way ahead of you, mullet. If you’re not with Red in five minutes, I’ll leave you behind!”

“ _Oh? And how do you plan on doing that with_ my _Lion?_ ” The comm crackled again as sounds of blaster fire filtered through, making Keiths words nearly incomprehensible.

Lance still did understand though and was about to answer when Allura beat him to it. “ _Paladins, no fighting on the comm. If you retrieved the data, retreat to the exit point immediately. Green how far-“_ Rolling his eyed Lance tuned her out as she continued to work on the problem Pidge and Hunk seemed to have with a broken data panel. Next time they shared Lions as to not arouse even more attention, he would persist on taking Blue. Keith would have to look where he stood then, ha!

Finding his way back was much easier as he had already cleared most of the hallways. He slowed down into a jog as he came closer to the air duct Red was docked behind, checking if Keith was already around here somewhere. Making his way around another corner he nearly stumbled over something. Rifle already up he immediately aimed at whatever it was, freezing as soon as he recognised the body.

The body without a head. The head he had literally shot to pieces half an hour ago. It looked even worse the second time around.

Swallowing hard he didn’t let himself look away until the bile in his throat stopped rising. This was his doing and he didn’t regret it. He was strong, he was not about to break over some unimportant Galra soldier. He had volunteered himself to fight in a war and he would live with the consequences. All of them. Even if he didn’t know how to do that right now, he would figure it out. Eventually. Staring at the lilac sprinkles all over the wall and floor he was ripped out of his trance as – _slash_ – a movement out of the corner of his eyes made his heartbeat skyrocketing.

Lance’s fight-or-flight-reaction kicked in immediately. Before fully registering what was happening, he had already raised his gun, aimed and shot at the still blurry figure in his peripheral vision. Vaguely, he sensed something hitting the floor next to him right before he pulled the trigger.

Everything he could do now was watch as his shot headed right for the Red Paladins head.

Keith – for some dumb, forsaken reason - had his visor up and Lance could see the surprise in his eyes. His own face twisted into a grimace of horror at the sight of the too dark blast of energy his gun had emitted. The deep indigo that reminded him that his gun was still set to kill.

Agony overcame him in the split second he could see Keiths face alight with purple, the light of his visor and the reflection of the energy blast mixing on his skin. Then, with the blast a hairsplitting distance from his face, Keith’s sword cut in between and deflected the blast, sending it into the wall off to the side. Lance didn’t even flinch at the flash of energy going by too close.

Abruptly time seemed to catch up with what had just happened. Lance took in a deep breath to slow his frantic heart. He pointed his blaster to the floor and stepped out of his fighting stance. He tried so still his shaking hands. Then he just… stood there. He didn’t know how to react. What to do. What to feel. The horror and agony from seconds before had vanished and now everything he could feel was numbness. Sweet, forgiving numbness.

Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed something purple entering his vision and he recalled that right before the- shot, something had flown right past him. Turning his had a bit too fast he stared at the floor to his left. At the body- No- the _bodies_. Another dead Galra soldier. _Where_ had _he_ come from- oh.

The second body had hit the floor right next to the first. Its head had landed right in the spot where another one should have been. Barely hanging on to its own body by a severed throat still oozing purple blood.

A throat cut precisely by a sharp blade.

Lance could only stare at the pair for a second before quickly looking away at the bile trying to rise again. Damn, he thought he had already been past that. Apparently not.

For the first time since- since- Lance looked at his teammate. Keith was staring right back at him, sword still raised in the movement which had deflected the blast. Little droplets were covering his upper torso, only just missing the skin exposed by his deactivated visor. His usually bright red blade was covered in dark purple.

For a few moments the two of them just looked at each other, both breathing hard from exhaustion and something else entirely. Keith slowly relaxed his stance and let his gaze wander down Lances right side. Lance didn’t know what he was looking at. Keiths looked back down onto the unlucky pair by their feet. Then back at Lance. His face went through a complicated array of emotions Lance couldn’t bring up the concentration to understand right now. Then he finally opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He closed it again.

Lance understood, he didn’t know what to say either. But he knew that he had messed up. He knew that he had to try anyways. “Keith, I- I’m sorry. I am- so sorry. I shouldn’t have- coño.” He took a few deep breaths, tying to steady his shaky voice. “I didn’t think. I should have stopped to assess the situation. I should have- I shouldn’t-”

His gaze had slowly drifted gen floor as he had spoken, which is why he startled at the hand touching his fidgeting arm. He looked up, right into Keiths eyes, too close for comfort. “It’s alright. Nothing happened.”

Lance bristled up. What did Keith mean nothing happened? Lance had nearly _killed_ him. His teammate. His friend.

(He ignored the relief flooding him, at Keiths shaken but not unkind expression. The fear lifting from his shoulders as Keith did not immediately reject him. Shout at him. Hate him.)

“What- No. We will _not_ act as if nothing happened.” Even though Lance would like to do exactly that. “We are talking about this. I am sorry.” Lance didn’t want this situation to end up like every other time something happened between them. Keith not acknowledging it in the least and Lance ending up not knowing if he was angry, annoyed or didn’t care at all.

Keith opened his mouth again to answer but was cut of short by the crackling of the comm followed by Hunk feeding Allura more relevant data. He swallowed and tried again. “Alright. We are talking about this. I accept your apology, alright?” He didn’t wait for Lance to answer. “Okay, great talk. Now come on we need to leave.”

Lance rolled his eyes. (And again tried to ignore the _relief_.) “No mullet, you can’t-“

Both of them flinched as Pidge’s joyful shout filtered through the comms, after Allura had finally provided her with the right solution for their error code. Shaken out of his silence by the princess questioning after their status, Keith finally spoke up. “Later, Lance.” Then with his head turned a bit to the right, into his comm. “We’re all clear. Let’s go.” Contrary to his words he didn’t move an inch. He looked like he was waiting for something.

Without thinking, remembering that they were in the middle of a mission, Lance answered. “Yeah, we are all clear.”

But Keith didn’t turn and hurry on right away. For a moment Lance watched him as he let his gaze wander over the two dead bodies by their feet, then looking at Lance. Not past him, not through him. Right _at_ him. He didn’t say anything else, just, tilted his head in the tiniest nod Lance had ever seen with this stupid, nearly non-existent smile on his lips that didn’t reach his eyes. His eyes that Lance could have sworn were the epitome of the word ‘bittersweet’.

In that moment Lance felt something pass between them. Something fundamental shifting, changing. He unquestionably knew Keith somehow understood. That he was not alone in knowing the severity of the situation they all had found themselves in. In understanding what they were trying to achieve here and what they would have to give up in order to do so. That he was not wrong.

Keith looked at him for a few long seconds and Lance returned the curtesy. And together, side by side, they made their way towards Red.

Passing by one of the windows separating them from outer space Lance spotted their reflections. His own usually bright blue and white armour was sprinkled with black. No, dark purple. His entire right side from visor to blaster was covered in small and big splotches, reflecting the light where they hadn’t completely dried yet.

Together the two of them made a mesmerising pair, he thought. Covered in blood, weapons at the ready, strolling down the enemy ship like it belonged to them. Like this was the way they had always been supposed to be. Bloody but together. And in that moment, Keith’s and his eyes crossing one last time in the reflection, Lance couldn’t help but feel like it was.

* * *

Lance had always had the weirdest, wildest dreams. Ranging from graduating the Galaxy Garrison as youngest graduate in history through hosting a tea party involving the White Rabbit right up to throwing himself off a cliff. Yeah, Lance had always had all kinds of dreams. It probably was only a coincidence that lately, more often than not, they made him abandon his bed in favour of spending his nights wandering the castle. Probably.

Even thought he had always had a lot of nightmares as a child, he had never been afraid of the dark. Veronica often enough had had to stifle her surprised screams coming home from a late night out; finding Lance standing in the middle of the kitchen, slowly slurping down a glass of milk. Those were the nights Lance had learned his first and worst swearwords. To this day. ‘Nica had a dirty mouth.

The castle was huge. Most of the times the team only went to and fro a few fixed places. The kitchen, the training rooms, with a few exceptions like Kalteneckers meadow. But the castle had been built to hold hundreds of people. There were so many abandoned rooms covered in dust, waiting to be explored.

In the four months since first stepping into the castle Lance had spent a lot of nights doing that. The Princess had once said she missed the way the castle had felt back then. Ten thousand years ago. The way it apparently had always been buzzing with activity, busy people bringing the blank halls to life. She resented the way her memories seemed to slowly fade away. Shiro had gently replied ‘now we are here, we can make new memories’.

Lance was also doing that. By now he held memories for many of the rooms hidden behind the identical looking doors. Like the cramped storage room on level 2 where – not even two months in - he had had his first panic attack in years.

Or the nondescripts servant quarters on the lowest level right beside greens hangar, where a few weeks later he had cried for hours on end on his mom’s birthday.

Or, most recently, the diplomat chambers bathroom. Where he had puked his guts out just a few days ago, after he had- had- _killed murdered obliterated-_

Lance took a deep breath. Hopefully Shiro was proud of him for fulfilling Allura’s wishes. He scoffed.

Sighing softly he stopped in one of the random corridors and leaned back against the cold metal wall. He had to stop being so negative about everything all the time. Lance had always prided himself for being genuine. Unapologetic about his happiness, about his passion for the things he loved.

Like everybody else, he also had times feeling down, but Lance had never felt the need to hide that either. He would think about what had upset him and then confront the situation, or the person, head on. Sometimes he went a bit overboard, but it did the job, right?

Recently, he found himself putting on a mask instead. Sad or pissed off underneath the false smile and the fake laugh. He hated it. He didn’t want to be bitter and unhappy and slowly crumbling to pieces. He knew it wasn’t healthy, that he had to talk to somebody about his mental health problems. But it was just so _hard_.

Normally he wouldn’t have a problem with talking to Hunk. Over the years they had known each other, Lance had so often complained about his problems or rambled about a failed conquest, Hunk wouldn’t have a problem with it now. The big guy was his best friend, his best bro, his asere, but-

Yeah, but.

For some reason, lately, they didn’t seem to be as close as they used to be. They still talked, of course. They joked and laughed and… well, that was pretty much it. They didn’t talk about anything important anymore. Because they rarely saw each other.

Hunk spend most of his time in the kitchen or in the lab with Pidge or talking to Shiro. Lance didn’t resent him for it. He himself spend most of his time in the training room or with Kaltenecker. It wasn’t as if he had gone out of his way to see Hunk either.

Bumping his head against the wall behind him, slowly sliding into a crouched position on the floor Lance continued to drown in self-pity.

Who else was there? Shiro was out of question, too much hero complex involved.

Allura wouldn’t work for similar reasons. Also, she didn’t seem to like him very much, she probably wouldn’t even agree to listen. At the beginning he had actually had high hopes for the two of them, but after being rejected – hard – again and again and again he only flirted with her out of habit, really. Also to annoy her. There was a little grudge forming on his side of the fence, regarding the way _how_ she had been treating him over the last couple of months. She wasn’t an option either.

Pidge on one hand was one of his best friends, but Lance didn’t think they were close enough to talk about his dwindling mental stability. It would be weird and awkward for everybody involved.

Coran was nice and all, but Lance still couldn’t figure out what he was saying most of the time. That conversation would probably leave him even more confused than he was already.

Which left him with one last option: Keith. Lance sighed again, burying his face in his arms.

He didn’t even think Keith was that bad of an option. Ever since their little unspoken understanding a few days ago – which as time went on Lance got less and less confident in it actually having happened - they had laid some of their usual conflicts to rest. That was, Lance thought, greatly helped by their nowadays almost daily raining sessions. Lance had given in a few weeks back and accepted Keiths lessons after Allura had constantly complained about his lacking close combat skills.

By now they rarely fought with each other anymore, at least not about anything serious. Stark in contrast to when they had started out. Lance couldn’t say which one of them had cancelled their agreement more often in the first two weeks, just to be back at the same time the next day, both too afraid of Shiro’s Unimpressed-Dad-Glare and additional lecture which would certainly have followed.

Lance liked Keith. He trusted him even, having depended on the better fighter often enough throughout the last few months. There were no weird expectations between the two of them, as they had never been friends before. They hadn’t ever been anything, really.

So, Keith wasn’t a bad choice, but… Yeah, but what? Lance couldn’t think of a ‘but’. God damn it. He was going to talk to Keith about his feelings, wasn’t he? Ha, if Lance from half a year ago could hear this, he’d probably dunk himself headfirst into the nearest trashcan.

That was the one and only thing Lance was sure about right now.

Shivering violently he realised, he had been sitting against the cold metal floor for too long and stood swiftly. Alright, he would go to his room and try to get some more sleep. Then, tomorrow, he would think over how he wanted to go about this.

But first he’d get himself some hot chocolate from the kitchen before he’d catch a cold.

Stepping through the automatic doors a few minutes later he found himself channelling his inner Veronica as he nearly dropped dead from a near-hearth-attack.

“Ay Colchones, Keith! What the hell are you doing here in the middle of the night?!”, he hissed silently, instinctively trying not to wake his little sobrina and sobrino. Not that they would have been able to hear him back on earth. Wouldn’t be, even if he had been screaming at the top of his lungs.

Keith looked at him over the cup he was nursing between his gloveless palms and raised one eyebrow. “Funny, I was about to ask you the same.” He wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down.

Lance swallowed his surprise and brushed his fringe to the side for what was probably the hundredth time that night. He didn’t even want to know what his hair looked like right now. Tomorrow-Lance could deal with that shitshow.

“Probably the same thing you are doing. Is there any hot chocolate left or did you only make one cup?” He started to walk past Keith who was sitting at the far end of the table but stopped at his response.

“This isn’t hot chocolate, its coffee.”

Lance swirled around. “What? Why the fuck would you be drinking coffee in the middle of the night?”

Keith frowned up at him but didn’t seem to be annoyed. “It isn’t the middle of the night, it’s four thirty in the morning.”

“That _is_ the middle of the-“

“I couldn’t fall back asleep after waking up and decided to get an early start to the day. I usually stand up at six anyways.”

Lance stared at him incredulous. “Of course you do.” At Keith’s unimpressed face he threw his hands up and decided he did not care.

After making himself a cup of his preferred hot drink he sat down around the corner from his teammate. A few silent moments later Keith spoke up again. “So, why are you here so early?”

“Couldn’t sleep either.” Lance inhaled a deep breath of steaming hot sweetness and signed content.

“Any reason why?”

One second away from answering with a nonchalant ‘no, not really’, he caught himself, remembering his decision from not even fifteen minutes ago. He wanted to talk to Keith. And alright, maybe he hadn’t planned to do it right now. But could he be sure he wouldn’t chicken out come morning? That he wouldn’t convince himself about ‘being fine’ and ‘having everything under control’? Clear as day the answer was ‘No’.

Slowly looking up from his hot chocolate, he spent a few moments trying to figure out the grey eyes in front of him. Keith met his gaze. Not mockingly. Patiently.

“I-“ Lance cleared his throat, his voice breaking at the single letter. “Can I talk to you about something? Something important.”

Keith didn’t move an inch, he looked like he was trying not to startle a wild animal. “Yeah, of course you can.”

Lance thought ‘Screw it’ and decided to jump right in. “Do you feel guilty about the fact that we have become murderers?” As soon as it was out, he realised he expected Keith to flinch. To look away and change the topic. To never talk to Lance ever again. To _not understand_.

But none of that happened. Instead Keith relaxed back into his chair and loosened his grip around his mug. Lance hadn’t even realised how hard he had been holding it.

“Yeah, I do,” licking his lips he slowly continued, “and don’t get me wrong, but I almost feel relieved you do too.” Lance raised one eyebrow, not angry, but amused.

“I mean- I didn’t mean, that you- arm- ugh.” He shook his head frustrated. “You know what I mean. I’m not good at talking to people. At talking about anything important.”

“Yeah, I noticed, mullet. But don’t worry, I get it.” Lance took another sip of his drink. “You know, I just don’t understand how I haven’t realised _before_. How I didn’t even flinch the first time Blue blew up an entire Galra squadron with a single breath. How the fact that they were actually dead didn’t even cross my mind is beyond me. But then-“ Now Lance was the one slowly shaking his head, murmuring. “I feel so _stupid_.”

Keith picked his train of thought right back up. “But then something happened that made you realise that the Galra aren’t just scarily realistic target practise dummies back at the Garrison. That if they had another skin colour and if we were back on earth, we would have been sentenced for Genocide three times over by now.”

Lance swallowed. Hard. “I thought you weren’t good with words, mullet.” He blinked at Keith again. “But yeah, basically. I mean, I know our weapons are set to stun on stealth missions. And I know that most of the troops we take down are sentinels, with the odd Galra commander mixed in, but- We are supposed to try and cause as little damage as possible. Allura told us at the beginning, she doesn’t want to cause any unnecessary violence.”

Keith snorted but Lance kept talking. “But at the same time we blow up ships, entire bases with hundreds of Galra and sometimes their families right there as well, just to get a small tactical advantage for one insignificant battle. How the hell does nobody seem to mind? How is nobody but me taken aback by all the death we cause?”

“I guess Coran and Allura don’t really care. I mean, Coran is a Veteran and Allura basically grew up fighting this war. Shiro, he…” Keith grimaced and took another sip of coffee before speaking again. “As for Pidge and Hunk, they are probably still seeing the practise dummies back at the Garrison. They look at it like it’s a game. I mean, at least I did in the beginning.” He paused but didn’t seem to be finished so Lance kept silent. “And it’s not as if Allura wants us to think any further than that.”

Lance furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever actually listened to what Allura, and Coran as well, say, whenever we manage to take down a big ship or a base or even just a single crucial soldier?”

Lance thought for a few seconds but couldn’t think of what Keith was playing at.

“They congratulate us. ‘Very well done, Paladins, what an amazingly swift attack!’ Or ‘Congratulations, Paladins, an extravagant manoeuvre.’”

Lance had to press his lips shut as the few happy memories of Allura praising him were suddenly flooded in despair. “Yeah, I- You’re right.”

For a moment Keith looked like he was at the brink to start screaming. But then he deflated and leaned forward onto his elbows. “And I don’t think they do this intentionally to misguide us. They probably do it out of habit. But I can’t help but feel like they are trying to- to manipulate us whenever I hear them say it nowadays.”

Lance sipped at his hot chocolate before repeating himself. “I feel so god damn stupid.”

Keiths head snapped up mouth open in protest, but Lance beat him to it. “I mean, I know we all are still teenagers and all that. And we come from a military background, which probably makes us more receptive for this kind of reinforcement, but still…” He shook his head. “Now that I look back at it, I feel like a stupid little boy who let himself be used for the war effort.”

Keith looked down into his cup. “Yeah.”

Without hearing Keiths murmur Lance continued. “But I also know the Princess and Coran aren’t trying to manipulate us. They would let us go home, if we wanted to. They _would_. So, no matter how fucking hard this is for me. I’m not going to give up. I will get over my issues about- _killing_ Galra and we are going to win this war. We are going to go home as god damn heroes.”

Keith had sat up straight during Lance’s little speech, a teasing grin slowly taking over his expression. “Yeah. You’re right, Sharpshooter. We are going to win this thing.” Looking coy he continued. “Together.”

Lance grinned. “Fuck yeah, Samurai, we will. Together.”

Their conversation drifted off onto less difficult territories and Lance almost felt sad about that. He hadn’t realised how much he had missed talking to somebody this way. Serious but not Live-Or-Death-We-Need-To-Run-Immediately-Serious. He regretted the thought almost immediately after asking about the Black Paladin.

“Shiro has been-“ Keith looked pained. “-acting weird after disappearing from Kerberos. He never talks to me about anything real anymore. When I try to ask about important stuff, stuff like this, he closes off and changes the topic.”

And at that something inside Lance ached for Keith. Because he had been alone for so much of his life. The one person he had finally been able to trust had been ripped away from him without forewarning. And when he finally got his big brother back, Shiro had changed. Had been forced to in order to survive. Keith hadn’t had anybody to talk to ever since they were stranded on this stupid castle.

“I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry for not realising. For not helping.”

After a heavy pause Keith exhaled loudly. “It’s fine, you are helping now. I want to apologise for not helping you either.”

Lance frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean? You basically gave me your silent support the day I stepped out from behind the big veil of ignorance.”

“I wasn’t talking about that. I meant your sleepless nights.” He hesitated before continuing. “Your panic attacks.”

Lance froze. “What? How-“ He swallowed his denial and decided again to face this head on. “How did you know?”

“I recognised the symptoms. Back in foster care I got them pretty regularly; haven’t had any since the Garrison accepted me and Shiro took me under his wings, but… yeah. You don’t forget what they look like on somebody’s face. Not after seeing it in the mirror often enough.”

He gripped the now nearly completely cold cup a bit harder before speaking again. “Oh, well. Caught me red fucking handed, huh?” He swallowed. No this was not how this was going to go between them. Not anymore. “Sorry. I’m- I’m not used to be feeling this-”, he hesitated for a second, searching for the right words, “-helpless. Clueless. _Empty_. I mean, how do you cope? How am I supposed to get through day after day without getting sick at the memories of what I have _done_? What I am going to _continue_ to do.” Lance looked up from the dirty spot on the dining table he had been staring at as an involuntary, sad laugh escaped Keith.

“Honestly, really goddamn honestly? I’m not. I’m really _not_. Most of the times I am just angry. Frustrated and bitter and so, so _angry_. But that’s how I function. That’s how I’ve survived my whole life.” Lance watched as Keith shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “And I know that that’s not healthy. I _know_. Back on earth somebody would always get me out of my spiral eventually. Talk to me, distract me, give me something better to do. But now that Shiro, Adam- but now none of that would work. Because we _have to_ fight this war, to _win_ this war. I can’t afford distractions. So, I just… accepted it. I am a killer, so what? I try to cause as less damage as possible doing it. But most of the times it is either kill or be killed and honestly, I’d rather be the one coming out alive. No matter the cost. Because this isn’t only about me, this is about the fate of the _entire universe._ I won’t let them win just because I couldn’t keep it together, I’d rather rip them all to pieces barehanded myself.”

Lance felt the guilt rise in him, but he understood. “So what you’re saying is, is that you are keeping your sanity together powered by pure spite.” Despite all Lane couldn’t help but grin. “That’s just typical, mullet.”

Another one of those broken laughs. “Yeah, I guess.” Keith caught Lances unsure gaze before he continued. “But I know that that won´t work for you. Hell, it probably won’t work forever for me either. I think what you need it this. Talking. Venting. Getting everything off your chest. And I’m officially volunteering. Feel free to talk to me whenever.”

Lance was stunned. He didn’t think that he had heard Keith talk this much in all the years he had known him _combined_. He had never thought that his opposite would ever do anything like this for him ever. Yeah, sure, they had become friends, but this this was some Next Level friendship shit. He was stunned, thankful, _happy_. “Yeah. I- “, his voice broke, “-I think you might be right. I am already feeling better than I have been for weeks. Thank you.” He blinked rapidly. “And actually, I’d like to hold you to your offer right now.”

Taking a deep breath he continued “I am sorry. And when I say ‘sorry’ I mean devastated, guilty and _so very much sorry_ for almost killing you on the mission a few days ago.”

“No, Lance you don’t have to-“

“Yes I do! Don’t you _dare_ acting like it was nothing-“

“It _wasn’t_ nothing. I know that. It was dangerous and misfortunate and nearly too close. But everything you did was react. You sensed danger and you reacted before something could happen to _you_. That’s good. That’s very fucking _good_. That’s how we _survive_ out there. So stop agonising over what was and keep focusing on what’s coming.” Keith took a few deep breaths, visibly calming himself down and continued, while Lance fidgeted with his cooling cup. “You _do_ have to work on your instincts during active combat, but there are worse problems than acting too fast. You will get the perfect mix between observation and reaction in no time, I promise, so let’s forget about that _non-incident_ and carry on.”

Lance wanted to argue, he really did. But, watching Keiths frenzied pep talk, he had realised that Keith was right. Nothing actually had happened, and nobody would be helped by Lance kicking up the emotional dirt over and over again. He himself the least of all. Everything he could do now was make up for it by getting better, by working on the problem. They would work it out together.

“Alright, that- actually helped a lot. Thank you. And just so you know, this arrangement goes both sides. You ever have something you want to get off your chest, come find me.”

Lance watched as Keith put aside his cup and held out his arm. “Alright.”

Grabbing his forearm Lance smiled. “Alright.” Everything he could think about in that second was how surreal this all felt. Fuck, they were on an alien ship, in the middle of some galaxy he couldn’t even remember the name of, thousands, no, millions of miles away from earth. And still somehow the fact that he had just made an emotional connection with _Keith_ of all people seemed even more unreal to him than that. “For fucks sake, if our counterparts from a year ago could see us now. I think past-Lance would absolutely flip his shit.”

Lane was about to continue his rambling when he noticed Keith’s amused smirk. He raised an eyebrow. “What.”

“You realise you are swearing an awful lot tonight, right? I don’t think I ever heard you say anything worse than ‘Gosh’ before, but right now- well, every other sentence of yours is definitely not child friendly.”

Lance grinned, sheepishly. “Oh, yeah. That’s because of the No-Profanity-Without-Tenebrosity Rule”, he winced. “It sounds a lot better in Spanish.”

“The what now?”

“You know I have a big family, right? Like, stupidly big. Growing up there was always at least one child under the age of seven in hearing range. But unfortunately my family also likes to swear. A lot. So after my biggest sister, Veronica, basically told one of the boys in kindergarten to go fuck himself my Abuela established the Profanity rule.”

Keith blinked for a second before his grin spread slowly, evolving into a hearty laugh. Lance didn’t think he had ever seen that either. He smiled.

“It basically means as long as the sun is up or as long as the children are still awake nobody in the house is allowed to swear. After a few years it kind of stuck, I guess. But, unfortunately, I always start to swear more and more the later it gets. It got me in one or two drunken squabbles over the years.”

Keith shook his head, a big smile still in place. “That’s simultaneously the most ridiculous and the most adorable family tradition I have ever heard of in my entire life.”

“I always knew you thought I was adorable”, was Lances automatic response, easily falling back into their nagging banter, as the tone between them seemed to firmly settle down in its new place.

“And ridiculous.”

“Yeah, can’t forget about that.” The conversation stilled again, both of them letting their thoughts wander. This time it the silence was a comfortable one. Lance realised he wanted one more answer tonight. “I answered my own question from when I came in. You still haven’t.”

Keith met his gaze evenly neither of them feeling the need to break eye contact. “Same reason as yours, I guess. Nightmares.”

And Lance understood. Felt understood. He wasn’t sad about the mood changing over into touchy territory once again, because it hadn’t. This was not a taboo topic between the two of them anymore.

He wasn’t bitter about the situation all of them were trapped in. Because being bitter wouldn’t make it any better. Having someone to confine in did.

He was starting to accept – and maybe even welcome - the changes he had been going through in the last few months. The ones Keith seemed to be nearly finished with already. If one could ever truly be finished with them at all.

For the first time in quite a while he felt completely contend. “Yeah.”

Something in Keith’s expression made him believe he did as well. “Yeah.”

* * *

Making the best out of the ten minutes Shiro had given them between training sessions Lance leaned back against the wall. He needed to think. His mind instantly wandered back to the night four weeks ago, to Keith and his little heart to heart. He and Keith. Keith and he and a deep emotional talk about feelings, not having ended in flames. Lance still couldn’t quite believe it.

He tipped his head up as his fingers fidgeted with his water bottle. He could hear some of the others falling into friendly chatter but didn’t feel like participating.

Which was a thing he had tried to actively change over the last couple of days. Not forcing himself to be happier on the outside than he was on the inside.

Keith had been the one to give him the final nudge into that direction. Although he hadn’t been able to relate 100%, always saying what he meant without filter, he agreed, it wasn’t healthy to hide your true emotions. Maybe Lance should try to slowly reduce the time hiding behind his mask until he wouldn’t feel the need to put it on at all.

It was hard, but Lance thought it helped. And it wasn’t as if he’d been completely miserable over the last few months. The mask came out for a short period of time and was gone before he even realised it had been there. A small buffer between him and his feelings after a mission or on a day he felt a bit sad. A buffer, Lance had deducted, worn out over his time in space, leaving him even worse in the long run. Keith had agreed with this deduction as well.

So, lately whenever he was feeling down, catching himself coming up with forced jokes and fake laughs, he tried to tone it down. Mostly, everything it needed was one glance at Keith and his knowing look and he stopped whatever he was making himself do. Let the others fill the silence. Let their happy conversations wash over him. Most of the times that was enough for the tension to leave his body and for his mood to improve.

Sometimes it wasn’t. Then he would strike up a conversation with Keith, intentionally secluded from the others or just sit next to him in gloomy but companionable silence.

On days when that wasn’t enough either, he would find himself wandering the castle come night. Because sometimes he needed to be alone; needed a remote room where he would be able to scream. He had filled a few more of the dusty rooms with new memories.

Afterwards he would go to the kitchen. Sometimes Keith was there and sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes Lance was the one who needed to ramble and sometimes he listened to Keith’s steady but angry voice, ranting about a mistake he had made on the last mission or how Shiro had ignored one of his suggestions.

And sometimes they would be talking about other things. Like the night two weeks ago when Keith had, honest to god, spend a full hour trying to convince Lance about the existence of Mothman. He only moved on from the topic at Lance’s offhanded mumble about how Keith ‘would try to tell him he believed in big foot next time’. Lance still had to grin every time he remembered the almost hysteric rant that had followed the commend.

Sometimes they didn’t say anything. Just sat there nursing their respective cups of hot chocolate and coffee, slowly munching away on the last batch of cookies Hunk had made.

A few days ago on one of these nights, Lance had convinced Keith to come to his room for some quality video game time. Lance didn’t think he had ever witnessed anybody being worse at playing video games. It was almost sad in hindsight. But Keith was stubborn and determined and slowly Lance came to think that maybe their rivalry hadn’t been as one-sided as he had thought it to be. Keith swore he would be able to beat Lance in no time. Yeah, as if!

Completely lost in thought he only notices Hunk calling his name after a nudge on his knee. “-ance.”

Apparently, Lance had sunken down to the floor at some point. He lowered his knees and looked over at Hunk now crouching beside him. “Huh, sorry I was kind of lost in thought.” Lance parted his lips to ask how much time was left until the next simulation started, when he realised Hunk was the only other person left in the room. Had he fallen asleep? No, the others would have woken him up and even if not, the noise would have. “Where is everyone?”

“They just left. Coran tried to start the simulation, but it seems to be one of the compromised ones. Pidge offered to try to fix it and Shiro told us to get something to eat. I guess you were too spaced out to hear anything.”

The castle had been waiting around for thousands of years. There were quite a few functions and programs corrupted, but most of the time Coran and Pidge or Hunk were able to fix them just fine.

“Oh okay, I think I almost fell asleep there for a second,” he said, already starting to get up. “Well, then let’s go and find something to eat, shall we.” But Hunk grabbed his arm and pulled him back down bevor he could get far.

“Lance, wait. You- You have been spacing out a lot the last few days. Is there- ah- something you want to talk about? Something you want to get off your chest?”

Lance froze. That was the last thing he had expected right now. The last serious conversation he had shared with Hunk had been at least three months ago. They had discussed the oppression of self-expression on one of the planets they had liberated. Not quite the same level as deep emotional exchanges.

And even thought Laces first instinct was to be relived and spill all his beans and talk about all the problems he was currently working through; he suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to. Because Hunk had been right there next to him as he started breaking down. And even thought Lance had told himself all those weeks ago that he wasn’t resentful about hat, he also kind of was. So, he didn’t know if he wanted to talk to Hunk about the sadness and self-loathing, he had made a place for deep inside himself. He also knew not talking to him was not an option either.

“I mean, yeah, I had a few problems over the last few weeks, but its fine now.”

Hunk looked at him sceptically. “Alright, just, I want you to remember that talking to people about your problems is important, alright? Especially now that we are in space and don’t have any-“ He suddenly broke up probably surprised by the words almost leafing his mouth.

But Lance didn’t need to hear them. He knew what he meant anyways.

When they had first met at the Garrison a year ago, after Lance had been elevated to fighter class, they bonded over their homesickness. In all the years spent studying at the Garrison Lance never got used to being away from his family for most of the year. Hunk brought up the idea to share stories about their respective families. They became best friends quite quickly that way, which was probably the only reason Lance hadn’t dropped out of school after the message of his Abuelos death reached him.

It had been just before the Christmas break and Lace would never forgive himself for missing the opportunity to see his Grandpa one last time by only a few days. Christmas that year hadn’t been good. By the end of winter break Lance had had his mind half made up about dropping out, when a Christmas card from Hawaii reached him.

It got him moving again.

The next few months hadn’t been easy and after a few bad marks got him a bit too close to failing, the school psychiatrist prescribed him light medication. It took off some of the ever looming sadness deep inside him, making it easier to concentrate. By the time the school year came to an end he had asked to be taken off the pills and hadn’t felt a need for them since.

Lance hadn’t been depressed or suicidal exactly, but ever since, Hunk always paid close attention to Lances moods whenever he got a bit too homesick. Or at least he had in the past.

“Because we don’t have any anti-depressants in space.” Lance smiled reassuringly at his best friend meeting his guilty eyes. “Hey big guy, you know I’m not sensitive about that. And you know it wasn’t ever all that bad. It wasn’t that. I would have told you, if it had gotten worse.“ It had been worse for quite some time, but not for the reasons Hunk would assume or understand. Keith had. So, Lance didn’t feel bad for bending the truth a little bit.

“Okay, great! Just don’t hesitate to find someone to talk to every once in a while, alright?”

“Yeah, I-“ _I already did. I talked to Keith,_ was what he almost said. But then he realised he didn’t want to tell Hunk about Keith. Because the nights he and Keith spend talking and arguing and playing video games were his save haven. They were his. He didn’t want to share that with anybody; didn’t even want anybody to know about them. At least not yet.

But he didn’t want to lie to Hunk either, so he said: “I know. I already did. It’s not fine yet, but I’m getting there. Promise.”

For the fraction of a second Hunk looked sad and Lance felt guilt flashing through him. “Oh alright. I’m happy you managed to work it out, just- You know I am always here for you, right buddy?”

And at that, at Hunk saying _always_ and _here for you_ Lance felt something inside of him give. Something hard and sour and bittersweet, like a cork popping free, letting dark fluid escape in heavy drops. Because Hunk hadn’t been, had he? He had ignored Lances swaying moods. Had ignored Lance pulling back from the team. From him. And yeah maybe there was a lot going on at the moment, but still, Lance couldn’t help but feel disappointed none the less. Something inside of him had popped and now resentment was slowly soaking his insides in a steady flow.

Hunk, apparently not realising Lance’s mood was crashing, continued after a few moments of silence. “Let’s get some food now, alright.” Lance had his mask in place before his friend had even opened his mouth.

This time he found himself to be the one reaching out when Hunk turned away to get up. Despite everything he couldn’t let childish insecurities destroy the longest still standing friendship he had, could he? “Hey, asere. It’s not like I was actively avoiding you.” Which was a blatant lie, but Lance didn’t care. For now he just needed to mend the bridges. “It’s just that something else came up, and it wasn’t your area of expertise anyways, alright?”

Hunk looked at him eyebrows drawn together – had he picked up on Lances white lie? - until he seemed to come to a conclusion, a slow genuine smile taking over his expression. “Okay, I understand.” No, he hadn’t. Lance didn’t know what Hunk thought he understood, but right now it was fine by him.

Hunk didn’t seem to be able to sense the weird tension between them and Lance wasn’t going to be able to keep himself together for much longer. He quickly shifted the topic away from his own problems. “So, how have you been doing lately, I haven’t asked about your issues either, have I?”

Hunk smiled sitting back on his heels. “I have been great, really. There wasn’t anything you should have been asking about, at least not anything we haven’t worked out in the last ten minutes.“ He grinned sheepishly rubbing his neck. “I spend most of my time in the kitchen cooking. And, recently, baking a lot more cookies,” he smirked knowingly at Lance.

Lance was exhausted. But he managed to summon a huge grin onto his face, nonetheless.

“Hey, don’t call me out on that! You know I have a sweet tooth!”

“As does Keith, huh buddy?”

Lances ‘I guess?’ was drowned out as Hunk continued, still smirking at him. “But anyways, I helped Shiro with a few configurations for his arm. And Pidge and I are spending a lot of time working out the problems in the code to find her brother and her father.”

Lance suddenly felt a bit taken aback. “Oye, have you had any breakthroughs lately?” He hadn’t even thought about Pidges family in months. Too busy with his own problems. Just like right now, just like always. When had he become this selfish? He needed to do better in the future, but not now. Now he just needed to deal.

Their conversation detoured from Pidges problems with the translation of the Altean program. Lance was desperately trying to find a way to end it completely, when the double doors sprang open, Shiro, Pidge and the rest spilling into the room noisily. Lance realised he had missed his chance to get anything to eat.

He winced, not looking forward to the long afternoon between him and his next meal. Which would have been bad enough without his mood in the basement and the hated mask still firmly in place. But it was alright, he wasn’t that hungry, he could make it through a few more hours of keeping up appearances.

Nonetheless he couldn’t help the small grin overtaking his expression as Keith came right up to them offering him one of Hunks cookies. He had probably been waiting for Lance in the kitchen and when he didn’t come, he brought him something back. A second ago Lance couldn’t have imagined anything snapping him out of his gloomy mood, but somehow Keith had. The mask crumpled a bit at the edges.

And Keith didn’t stop there. No, he looked at Lance and had the audacity to instantly know that something was up. Lance hated that. He hated how Keith had - after a few short weeks of late night coffee talks and playing video games and listening to Lances every problem - he hated how Keith had figured out a way to look right through the mask.

Maybe he also didn’t.

A second later Keith handed over his own cookie as well. That, combined with Keith’s small but understanding smile, caused the mask to shatter.

By the time Lance had finished his hurried snack, looking at Keith one last time as the countdown for their training sequence reached zero, it was completely gone. The smile Lance cast at Keith wasn’t fake in the least.

* * *

Whenever possible the team split into groups of two while on stealth missions. Were all five of them needed, Shiro or Keith usually worked on their own. Which was great, because Keith blatantly refused input and more often than not took off on his own anyways. That was at least the case whenever the two of them had to work together.

Ever since _that_ mission a month ago Lance had tried to fill the role of The Protector during stealth missions. Meaning he was trailing after Pidge or Hunk, taking out any of the guards further away and kept an eye on their back while they extracted data from computers or terminals.

(The fact that this way somebody _oblivious_ would always be with him, was just a side effect. Somebody to pick up his slack. Somebody who would surely notice, if his gun was always set to kill. Somebody who would ask too many questions. Lance thought this happenstance was reason enough to make an exception from his newest rule.)

Today Lance had not managed to secure the position. Today he was with Keith. Shiro had decided to check if the joined training sessions had improved their teamwork. Which was completely ridiculous, because how would fighting each other help them not to argue during missions? Yeah, Lance didn’t know ether.

If anything _had_ improved their teamwork, it was their late night coffee talks, surely not the sessions they spent bickering with each other.

He would be annoyed with Shiro, if he wasn’t also sorry for the guy suffering from his allergies. God knows where he had managed to find pollen on a spaceship, but somehow, he had and was now complete useless for a stealth mission. The other reason was: Lance was kind of nervous. Which was also stupid! Why the hell would he be nervous? No reason, that’s why!

Today’s target was a big cruiser orbiting a huge meteor, slowly drifting through space. The castle was waiting out of scanning range behind a nearby planet. Meaning, all of them were way too far away from the next glowing, heavenly warmth producing star. That’s what Lance hated most about space. It was always so fricking cold everywhere. The fact that the Galra apparently hadn’t gotten the memo on central heating didn’t help either.

So, yeah, taking everything into consideration Lance wasn’t in the best of moods, silently sneaking through one more nondescript hallway. Keith was the one leading the way, for some reason, while Lance was busy stunning any soldiers and sentinels they came across, his gun being a lot more effective in that regard.

He grudgingly had to admit, everything was working out pretty well. They hadn’t disagreed over a single thing so far. Keith was letting him handle the enemies without pressing forward himself. Lance agreeing on wherever direction Keith wanted to go next as he knew, his own sense of direction wasn’t the best. They finally found their data panel in the fifth room they searched and were already heading back after confirming via the comms to have gathered everything they needed.

That was of course the moment everything went to shit.

The explosion swept Lance clean of his feet and for a few seconds he was completely disorientated. The blaring alarm and the flickering lights set in almost instantly, not helping very much at all. Before he could get up Keith crouched down beside him, tugging him further down.

“Stop. Somebody’s coming.” Lance didn’t know how Keith could be aware of their surroundings already, he was still concentrating on the ringing sound in his ears.

They pressed themselves together behind a column and watched the soldiers hurry past as their comms came to live. “- _was near their sector!_ _Keith, Lance are you alright?”_ Pidge sounded as panicked as Lance had ever heard her.

“We’re fine. That wasn’t us. We were mostly hit by the shockwave.” They stood and started hurrying back to where they had come from.

“ _Thank god, cause’ that big boom levelled a good third of the ship!”_ Hunks exclamation made Lance shudder. These cruisers were fricking huge. A third? That was probably the mass equivalent of a skyscraper back on earth. No matter the cause behind the explosion, it couldn’t mean anything good, they had to get out of here quick.

Keith was running fast, but with a slight limp in his step Lance noticed. As they were sliding around a corner Keith came to a hard stop.

“Coño.” The hallway in front of them had caved in, a sign overhead declaring it the passage to sector 7, apparently one of the impaired ones.

Keith was already turning around, when Lance held him back this time activating his comm. “Hey Pidge, we need an alternate exit route. We are at the caved in entrance to sector 7.”

Keith stared at him, not annoyed like he usually would, but weirdly calm. Lance thought it looked almost appreciative. Then he realised the shorter one hadn’t shaken off his arm like he usually did either and hastily let go.

They were off as soon as Pidge sent the info and luckily didn’t run into too many squadrons. The ones they did come across were mostly in a hurry themselves and were taken out easily. The route thankfully took them through a few hallways they had already cleared earlier which helped their efforts immensely. Soon they reached a big crossing filled with unconscious Galra slumped against the walls. It looked a bit disturbing, knowing they were the ones responsible for the sight, but Lance assured himself these soldiers were just asleep. Save and soundly.

Keith stopped in the middle of the room to check where exactly they had to go. Using the small pause to rub his temples Lance cursed the still ongoing alarm, when he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. His head snapped around so fast, he thought he heard a crack. Already lifting his gun before he had fully registered the soldier aiming at the Red Paladin, he was still too slow.

“Keith, duck! Gun!” Lances shot sounded a millisecond after the first one. He followed it up with a few more, just to make sure, before turning around and sprinting towards his partner.

Everything he could do was watch as Keiths head hit the floor. Crossed the distance between them within a few steps, Lance couldn't help but grimace.  
  
"Keith! Keith, buddy, are you alright?" Kneeling down Lance rolled him over onto his back. He flinched violently and recoiled. There was blood. A lot of blood. _Why was there so much blood?_  
  
Despite the shock, Lances Garrison First Aid Training and Shiros more recent Paladin Safety Course kicked in and he immediately pressed one hand to Keiths bleeding chest.  
  
It was - no pun intended - a bloody mess. The blast had ripped off a huge part of the now blackened armour. That shouldn't be possible. Thankfully, most of the impact seemed to have been absorbed by the armour. The actual wound wasn't as big, but raw and messy and with singed flesh around the edges.  
  
Lances other hand reached up to comb back black hair. He had to close his eyes for a second taking a deep breath. Keiths left temple was bleeding. Blood was already sticking hair against his face. Of course it was.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Lance was starting to breath faster; his hands were beginning to shake where they were pressing down hard to keep the blood at bay. Keith finally made a sound; Lance sent a quick prayer gen heaven. But then Keith decided to sit up, not getting very far, groaning loudly after moving his head to fast.

  
Lance had loosened his grip a bit, startling as Keiths hands suddenly joined his.  
  
"No, don't- oh god- don't stop pressing down." Eyes shut tight he pressed out the words between gritted teeth.  
  
"Yeah, right. You're right! Alright, we can do this, I can do this! We need something-" he interrupted himself, pulling away his hands and taking his own arm guards off. He grabbed one of Keiths knives and cut of the sleeves of the black undershirt he wore underneath.  
  
"What- what are you d-"  
  
"I don't think I can get off my chest armour right know. I just- I don’t-" Lance stammered, crumpling up the fabric. It wasn't much, they would need all of this for the bullet wound, Keiths temple would have to wait.  
  


His hands hovered over Keiths. "Ready?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm-" Keith took a deep breath, "Yes, ready."  
  
As soon as Keith lifted his hands, Lance swooped in to press the makeshift compression down. Keith tried to swallow his groan but wasn't very successful.  
  
"Okay, amazing. Peachy! This will do for now, I'll-" Just as Lance was starting to gather a minimum of control over himself, everything went dark.

After having adjusted to the flashing lights and the ear-piercing alarm over the course of the last ten minutes, the sudden nothingness almost disturbed him even more.  
  
"What the hell?" Lance activated his comm. Nothing happened. "Pidge? What's going on? Keiths wounded, we need you to get us asap. Hunk? Shiro, Coran? Hello!" Lance unintentionally pressed down harder again and almost recoiled completely at the pained sound escaping Keith.  
  
"Shit! Sorry, I didn't-"  
  
"No, it's- It's alright. Come on, keep pressing."  
  
Lance was freaking out. He wasn't qualified for this! What the hell was he supposed to do here? He started rambling.  
  
"Alright. Alright, pinga! We are trapped in an enemy ship with apparently no power whatsoever. Our comms aren't working and for the cherry on top, you have a fucking blaster wound! I can't- I don't- cojone- Me cago en diez-"  
  
Lance was yanked down by one of Keiths bloody hands grabbing onto his neckline. "Lance, I know you are panicking right now, but I- ah, damn- I need you to keep your shit together right now, got it? Just- Get out of here and get some help. Alright? You are fast, you can do this."  
  
Lance stared down at him, his Keith Is Being Stupid Sense kicking in immediately. "Are you listening to yourself? No way am I going to leave you here, eres tremenda comemierda! " He took a deep breath. "Alright Lance, get it together. Plan. We need a fucking plan."  
  
"No swearing, Lance. Sun's still up."  
  
Lance blanked out for a second and continued to stare at Keith. "What."  
  
"No swearing. It's daytime. You- Your Grandma is going to have your hides, if she hears you talking like this..."  
  
What the actual fuck.  
  
"Oh my god, you are delirious. You are bleeding like a pig, and you are fucking delirious."  
  
"I’m not, keep pressing- ah- I'm not delirious. Shut- Shut up. Think about your goddamn plan then, Genius."  
  
Lance couldn't believe this, but Keith had the right idea, he needed to do something already.  
  
"Alright, sit up and press down as hard as you can. I'm gonna let go and carry you back to Red, we are only a couple turns away from the exit point. Let's go.”  
  
"You aren't carr'ing me, I c'n walk." Shit, he was slurring. This couldn't be a good sign, could it? Lance glanced down at their intertwined hands and everything he could see was red. There was so much of it. He had to get the idiot into a heeling pot as fast as fucking possible. Walking his ass.  
  
"Don't you even think about walking, mi amigo! Don't you think I didn't see you limp earlier; I shouldn't even have let you run here yourself! You will need both of your hands to keep pressure on your wound, so stop arguing and stand up."

  
Keith tried to protest but shut up quickly to cut of his moan as Lance manhandled him into an upright position. "Oh my-", he breathed out sharply. "God."  
  
"You are hallucinating again. I’m Lance, not God." Lance gave him some time to get over the sudden pain.  
  
"Har har, ah! Real' fuckin' fun'y."

  
Lance shifted his arms behind Keith’s back and underneath his knees, heaving him up. Fuck, he was heavy.  
  


"Now who is the one getting his ass kicked by my sweet old Abuela?"  
  
"You, 'f you don't start fuckin' movin'."  
  
Lance did, hoping like hell they wouldn't come across any Galra troops.  
  
They managed to stay clear for about three turns, then he quickly had to double back as too many running feet headed towards them. He stepped again behind a column and leaned his side against the wall, letting it support Keiths back as well. With his free hand he managed to grab his Bayard and awkwardly aimed in the direction of the footsteps passing by. At the same time he checked up on Keith, his face resting against Lances chest.  
  
He nearly dropped him. Keiths eyes were closed and if Lance recalled correctly, he hadn't heard a single sound while relocating Keith against the wall. Fuck. What did he do, what did he fucking do?  
  
Alright, coño, breathe. He couldn't afford to stop in the middle of a random hallway where someone could find them any second now. If he remembered Pidges route correctly and he bloody hoped he did, they were two more hallways away from the exit point.  
  
He looked down at Keith one last time, trying to ignore the blood gluing his pale face against Lances blue armour. Checking that, yes, he was in fact still breathing, Lance stowed away the Bayard and took off again.  
  
He managed to reach the airlock without further incident. Quickly stepping through, he was starting to worry if Red would even let him in with Keith being unconscious. Seeing her, hatch already open for them, he exhaled relieved.  
  
She, thank god, hadn't been affected by whatever had knocked out the cruiser and their comms. Rushing into the cockpit, he laid Keith out on the bare floor. He would have brought him to the cot further back but didn't want him in another room during the flight back.  
  
After placing Keiths lax hands against the wound, better than nothing, Lance turned around and hurried towards the control panel, which brought up his next problem. This was the Red Lion. Lance was the Blue Paladin. He couldn't pilot Red. He had known that they should have taken Blue instead! But nobody ever listened to him, did they?! Quickly, what did he do? He hurried back grabbing the red Bayard, hoping it would be enough.  
  
"Alright girl. I know you don't want me to be here. But our buddy back there needs our help, alright?"  
  
Honestly, Lance hadn't believed this would work, already prepared to press every button he could find, but as soon as he brought the Bayard near its slot, Red released a violent roar as if that was the thing she had been waiting for. Lance was about to take over the controls, when the Lion rapidly jumped off the cruiser on her own. Speeding through empty space faster than Lance had ever experienced with Blue.

  
He grinned and let out a startled laugh at the euphoric feeling flooding over from her. "Alright girl! I understand, you got this."

  
After making sure that they were indeed moving towards the castles hideout, Lance jumped up again and threw himself down besides Keith, quickly putting more pressure on his chest again. His grin faded instantly. Keiths chest wasn't moving.  
  
Oh no. "Coño, Keith don't- Don't do this to me, buddy."  
  
Now really starting to panic Lance froze before mentally slapping himself. Keith had been right earlier, he needed to get his shit together. He checked one last time how far out from the castle they were, a few more minutes, still too fucking far.

  
Lance pressed Keiths head back gently, pulling down his jaw with the other hand and held his nose closed, he leaned down and pressed his lips firm against Keiths. He exhaled, repeated it one, two more times, feeling Keiths chest rise where he had automatically pressed down on slack hands still holding the completely soaked fabric. Then he hastily ripped of the rest of Keiths chest armour and started to count compressions. He leaned down to check for breathing again. Nothing. Lance swore but immediately started another round of CPR.  
  
But it just wouldn’t work! Lances vision was starting to get blurry, tears flooding his eyes. Why wouldn’t Keith fucking breath! He was about to fall into a full blown panic attack, when suddenly someone shoved him aside. He started to shout and reached for his Bayard before realising it was Shiro. Coran was kneeling on the floor next to Keith, saying something as he pressed fingers against his neck. Lance couldn’t hear anything but his own blood rushing in his ears.  
  
He looked out the windshield and recognised the distinctive walls of the Lions hangars. They were in the castle. Lance had been so transfixed; he hadn't even realised Red landing. Looking back at Keith, Lance did a double take when the space was empty. Turning towards the door he rushed after Shiro, who was hurriedly following Coran out of the hangar.

Lance ran after them or at least he wanted to.  
  
Stepping of Reds ramp his feet gave out underneath him. They couldn't hold his weight anymore. His arms weren't much better. He barely managed not to knock himself out on the floor and started to dry heave immediately. He couldn't throw up, stomach achingly empty. His last meal had been almost a full day ago. They hadn't had time to eat in the morning, all of them torn from sleep by the castles combat alarm right before breakfast.  
  
Lance hadn't even had any cookies during the night as he had slept through without incident for once. He wondered if Keith had as well. He pressed his eyes closed even harder.  
  
Sitting back on his heels he leaned his head back and stared at the cold white ceiling, a tear rolling down his cheek. What had just happened? How could all of that have been real, not a gruesomely detailed nightmare? None of that should even have been possible.  
  
Lance was breathing fast. His thoughts rushed back to the mission. Why had everything suddenly exploded? If they hadn't set up a bomb, then nobody else should have either! And why hadn't the fucking comms worked? Had it been an aftereffect of the explosion? But how would a bomb have taken out the Balmera crystal powering these huge ships. Had it been another attack, an EMP? But why and why the fuck today!  
  
Lance drifted further. Why hadn't Keith's armour worked. The Paladin armour should have been able to deflect the blast. It functioned basically like a faraday cage, why hadn’t it worked as physics dictated it to?

  
Then he realised. The first explosion. He had assumed Keith had managed to stay on his feet, only having stumbled a bit to justify his limp. But Lance hadn't seen what had happened, had he? He had been in front, useless, lying on the floor. Keith must have fallen as well, probably resulting in breaking one of his armour clasps. Shit, why hadn't he said anything? Que tremendo cabron, they could have fixed it! But Lance knew why he hadn't. They had been in a rush; they had both wanted to get the fuck out of there. Why hadn't Lance noticed, he _should have_ noticed!

  
They could have avoided that big fucking bloody hole.  
  
He swallowed hard, breathing shallowly. He couldn't think about this, like he couldn't think about the blood trickling down Keiths face. The residue a black mess against Lance’s chest. The dark red trail had already been dry when Shiro had shoved Lance. Had shoved him away because he would actually be able to help. Lance hadn't been helping. Not enough.  
  
And with that thought he drifted into the direction he had actively tried to avoid thinking about until now. The fact that all of this was his fault.

And he wasn't even being melodramatic this time.

Keith had been shot by a Galra soldier. A solder that had been Lance’s responsibility. A few short hours ago he had insisted on taking on scouting duty, because his gun was the better option. It was quicker, more effective, more reliable.  
  
But apparently it _wasn't_.  
  
Because the Soldier hadn't been unconscious. He had been on the floor, Lance had hit him, but not good enough. He'd woken up. Had woken up and shot Keith. Had maybe killed- no.  
  
Lance let his head drop down to his chest, the tears on his face drying fast. This was his fault. Everything he could think about as he saw Shiros retreating back in front of his inner eye, Keiths lifeless limbs hanging down at his sides, was, that this was his fault.  
  
And then there was a second one. It was worse but cathartic at the same time. The thought that this wouldn't have happened, if Lance had taken the soldier out for good. Because then he wouldn't have woken up again. Or even if he had, he'd have bleed out long before they would have gotten back.  
  
Lances thoughts swirled so violently, he nearly got dizzy again. He could have prevented this. Everything he would have had to do was flip the small switch on his gun away from stun, onto lethal. Onto death.  
  
Taking his first deep steady breath in too long, staring down at the floor now smeared in red, Lance made a decision. The next time he would touch that gun, he was going to flip the switch. And he would do it again every time after.

There wouldn’t be any exceptions anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a bit more written for this but don't expect any updates any time soon. I just wanted to get this out now, because I knew if I didn't, I wouldn't ever.
> 
> I'd love to get some feedback, where it's too slow going, which parts you found unnecessary/boring and which parts were good! Don't be shy, act like you are correcting my english paper, bring out your inner teacher! Really, I'd love that.
> 
> Also, I'm not a native speaker, so I have my troubles with spelling/grammar and so on. Feel free to point those out as well!
> 
> (And I do not speak Spanish. If something isn't right or just sounds wrong, feel free to shout at me in the comments.)
> 
> But of course, if you just wanted to read this and maybe even left Kudos I'm still very much thankful. You are amazing. Thank you, I hope you have a lovely day!


	2. Justifications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READ BEFORE CONTINUING!  
> For everyone who already read the first chapter once - and for everyone who actually subscribed to this dumb story (Thank you so much btw!) - I changed a few things in the first chapter. Not a lot just a few little things that bothered me. You would probably understand the story without re-reading, but I thought I would tell you anyways!  
> Also, I edited so that Lance actually speaks a bit of Spanish now, if you are interested in that! (I do not speak Spanish, so I do not take any responsibility for mistakes. Feel free to correct me tho.)  
> Alright that was all, please, carry on!

After taking a cold shower to get rid of all the blood – and other incriminating tracks – Lance let Coran check him over. He didn’t talk back at the older man reprimanding him for not coming to the med bay immediately. It wasn’t as if he and Shiro could have taken him with them when they had gotten Keith. He wasn’t bitter about that, he _wasn’t_ , Keith had needed them more. After receiving his all ok, he wandered over to Keiths Cryo Pod keeping a bit of distance between Shiro and himself.

“Coran says he will be fine?”

“Yeah he- he will be. His heartbeat and breathing were almost non-existent when you got here, but it’s already picking up again. He will be fine.”

Lances perked up. So Keith hadn’t flatlined? He exhaled heavily. He had probably been to out of it to notice the shallow breathing. He hoped his CPR hadn’t done any damage then. He decided to ask, Shiro was their self-proclaimed first aid trainer after all. “Do you think the CPR-“, he was cut off.

“CPR could have helped, yes. But it was-” For some reason Shiro grit his teeth. “Coran said it was best that you decided to pilot Red back here manually instead. He wanted to ask how you activated the function actually, normally she shouldn’t have been able to move an inch without her Paladin.”

There was so much to unpack in that statement Lance didn’t know what to start with. A Manual Function? Red had flown back on her own, Lance had been occupied otherwise. Which brought him to the more pressing questions. _CPR_ would _have helped?_ What? “Shiro, I d-“, he was interrupted again.

Shiro did finally look at him then, arms crossed tensely. “It’s alright, Lance. I know you are still young, and that the situation was probably overwhelming, but you are trained in first aid. You _shouldn’t_ freeze up like that. We will have to go over the lesson again sometimes soon. Don’t worry about this now, you can help Coran with the Manual Function for now, alright?” Shiro turned away from him again, dismissing him without waiting for a response.

And Lance was so- so frustrated and _tired_ , he turned around and left without thinking. Only when he found himself in Storage Room 17 on Level 3 five minutes later did he wake from his stupor.

Lance wasn’t proud of what he did to Storage Room 17.

Sitting against the wall by one of the fallen bookcases he shuffled through the loose papers without seeing them. He realised Shiro and Coran had probably reached Reds cockpit right when Lance had already been fighting back his tears. Concluding that he had been just as useless as always. Which was reasonable, but it still hurt. Shiro could at least have given him the benefit of the doubt.

But he understood.

If he would have walked in on one of his family members dying while some idiotic bystander stood by doing nothing, his thoughts surely wouldn’t be completely rational either. It was a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding which did not matter, because Keith was fine.

He would be fine.

Childishly kicking a broken data panel underneath a storage bin his thoughts wandered further. Lance needed to talk to Coran about the manual piloting. After all, it could have been an anomaly. They wouldn’t be able to fall back on false half-knowledge in the case of an emergency. _Another one._

Sitting up he decided to clean up the worst of the mess he had made before going to find Coran. He gathered up more of the papers, this time scanning them automatically. His Altean wasn’t that good - alright nearly non-existent - but Allura had taught them some words and phrases in both Altean and Galran in case they were cut off from the castles translator.

Lance had to admit that he was fairly behind in his studies, but he still recognised the words he needed most commonly. This paper clearly said something along the lines of ‘user manual’ and ‘signal boost’. At the bottom of the page was a picture of the station Pidge spend most of her free time behind, looking for a signal from her family.

Lance froze. Pidge would kill to have these. He quickly snatched up everything else in his immediate vicinity and hastily cleaned up the rest of the room, so nobody would ask questions, if they needed to come back later.

Wiping his split knuckles at the inside of his shirt he made his way towards Pidges little goblin den.

The following hours were some of the worst of his entire live, making this day officially the worst one he had ever had to live through.

It started out with him being thrown out of said goblin den. That, actually, was his highlight of the day. Which said a lot.

Pidge had been so ecstatic at the sight of the user manual, she thanked him in a mix of English and Altean, before practically banning him from the room. Rude, he had thought grinning. Slowly he started to make his way back towards the med bay. Coran should still be there.

It got bad fairly quickly.

Coran was in fact still there, so was Shiro. Between the two of them his mood steadily deflated until it was completely in the basement. Coran for some reason couldn’t explain himself how Red would have flown on her own, asking the same questions over and over again.

Shiro overheard Lance’s retelling of the events and joined them, scrutinising every discrepancy before Lance could even start to explain the details. He didn’t seem to believe him at all. So yes, every ounce of attention was on Lance, but he still didn’t feel like anybody _heard_ him.

He only listened to them in return because he needed to know what was happening with Keith.

This time he wasn’t grinning after being dismissed from the room.

It got worse.

After a full day without anything of sustenance, he finally made his way towards the dining area. Upon entering he could immediately make out Hunk tinkering with something in the kitchen, the rest of his attention was captured by Allura. She was sitting at the dinner table, slowly eating a portion of Goo while scrolling through a holo pad.

Lance mustered up a weak smile for her. For some time now he had thought Allura and him were riding the same wavelength. He wasn’t flirting with her as much, at least not any more than he was with anybody else, and she had stopped turning him down every opportunity she got. He had thought they were beginning to be friends, that she was starting to appreciate him.

Apparently, he had thought wrong.

She looked up instinctively as he entered the room, easy smile freezing until it neared a grimace. Sitting up straight she greeted him with an aborted nod. “Paladin.”

Lance was hungry and so tired, he decided to not care. “Princess.” His voice was absolutely wrecked, only coming out as a whisper, he sounded like death warmed over.

This for some reason prompted Allura to roll her eyes. What was her problem?

“Lance, your teammate got injured today, we are all very exhausted. Please, could you refrain from prepositioning me, at least for the rest of the day? I have important work to attend to right now.”

And, wow. Just- Wow. He was so stunned he couldn’t say anything at all. Shaken out of his trance by Hunk entering the kitchen, he still didn’t know how to respond. Should he scream? Ignore here? Apologise? Yeah, as if.

“Hey, Lance how are you doing? Coran already told us that you were fine earlier, but you must be hungry, right? You saved a live today after all. Wait here, I’ll get you a special dish.” And at hearing that, Hunk recognising his good deed, combined with Allura’s unbelieving nose scrunch, it got too much.

“Is there something you want to share with the class, Princess?”, he bit out, barely restraining himself from shouting. His voice only would have broken anyways.

Allura looked at him, seemingly being able to understand the unfamiliar phrase just fine for once. “No I- Hunk is right, if you did save Keith today then you deserve some kind of treat.”

“If? What do you mean ‘if’?” Lance nearly growled as Hunk re-entered the dining area .

“Lance is everything alright?”

“Do not speak in this tone to me, Blue Paladin.” Allura’s demand drowned out Hunk’s question completely.

“And what tone is that? This one?”, he snarled at her. “Because judging by the ugly grimace your face becomes whenever I open my mouth, you don’t seem to like my normal voice either. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you at all!”

Hunk gasped and Allura stood up swiftly, pushing her chair back with an ugly screech. “Yes, I believe that might be the best kind of action right now. And while you do that, think about how you could have helped _even better_ during today’s mission, would you? You are dismissed.”

Lance was fuming. He was sure if he opened his mouth right now, nothing but swear words would come out. So he did what his Abuelo had always told him to do. He held his head high and kept his dignity. Ignoring the growing pain in his stomach, glaring at Allura one last time, he turned around and left.

* * *

Lance was woken by a nightmare he couldn’t remember. Checking his alarm clock he was surprised to see midnight was still half an hour away. He had hoped to be able to sleep for longer but- he winced. The growling in his stomach reminded him why he probably hadn’t. He decided to run to the kitchens to grab something to eat, before heading down to the med bay to check on Keith. The Red Paladin wouldn’t be wakeing up before morning, but Lance wanted to see him anyways. Keith at least wouldn’t start to insult him anytime soon, unconscious or not.

After practically devouring two portions of Goo, Lance grabbed some additional midnight cookies and took off. He decided to stop by the common room first to grab one of the warm blankets. On his way there he had to pass the bridge. He slowed down a few steps shy of the double door noticing light shining through the small gap in the middle.

Was Allura still awake? Well, Lance didn’t care, he started to walk past when he overheard a male voice drifting out of the room. A male voice he couldn’t place. Who was it? The slightly metallic sound made it clear the voice came from the other end of an holo call. Again he didn’t care, but then suddenly he did.

Allura didn’t answer with her usual stern authoritative voice, no, she giggled. Lance froze.

She wasn’t taking some late night alliance call, she was flirting. Or, Lance shuddered, maybe she was flirting with one of the other leaders. That explained at least slightly why she had reacted the way she had earlier. She could have said something, he wouldn’t have bothered her, if he had known she was taken or was trying to be. Well, he would have toned it down a notch at least.

Feeling only a little bit bad he stepped a few paces closer and leaned towards the door.

_“…are called the Singing Towers of Darillium, I went there once when I was a child. I would love to take you there at some point in the future as well, my Princess.”_

_My_ Princess. Lance cringed. Wow, that sounded so cheesy, especially combined with the breathy voice it had been delivered with. He tried not to think about all the times he had called Allura by the same endearment in the past. No wonder she never took him seriously. You’re in for a bitter awakening mysterious stranger. This Princess doesn’t fall for the tacky lines!

Except- Allura was giggling again. What.

“Oh, they sound marvellous, I would love to! But it will have to wait, there is a lot I must accomplish still, before I could even consider such a ro- a little getaway, Prince Lotor.”

And alright there was a lot to unpack there. This Lotor fellow seemed to be part of the alliance or was about to be by the way Allura was smitten by him. But the more pressing question right now was: Why was the cringy flirting welcomed from him when Lance himself had only ever been rejected? Was he really that much worse than… a prince? Well, he didn’t need an answer to that question, thank you very much.

Lance stepped back, balling his hands to fists. He wouldn’t let this get to him. He didn’t care. He didn’t even like Allura anymore, goddamn it. Trying not to overhear anything else he quickly made his way past the bridge and towards the med bay. Once he was out of ear shot, he didn’t try to stop himself from kicking a closet door though.

Lance entered medical seconds before all the hallway lights flickered out for a few beats before kicking back in again. Ah, finally. The castle was restarting it’s automatic service cycles, meaning this shit show of a day was over once and for all. In here only the emergency lights flickered, the rest stayed on. Making his way towards the cryo pods, Lance realised he had forgotten to grab the blanket. Amazing. The scratchy ones from here would have to do then.

He propped some of the blankets against the pod and stood before it. Keith looked… normal. His skin held a healthy blush and from what Lance could see the chest wound had closed up completely already. Coran had said the wound hadn’t been as gravely as it had seemed at first sight, but Lance was still amazed by the speed of the Altean healing technology.

He sat down leaning back against the pod, fixing his stare at one of the mixtures dripping out of a distillatory. He knew Keith was unconscious, but he still didn’t want to look at him during the following either. Lance wanted to rant. He would probably end up whining.

And that he did. Eyes following the red fluid through the many tubes he talked about his problems. He started out slow. His insomnia, his eating problems. How his general insecurities had been getting better lately, but that they were doomed to go downhill from here on out.

He talked about how happy Pidge had been today. That he was happy for her.

He watched as the drops collected in a small vial, growing darker by the second. Another machine next to the distillatory roared to live, throwing the mixture around violently.

He started on the heavy stuff. How Coran wouldn’t take his word for account. How he had said again and again he needed to check with the archives. Like Lances word wasn’t enough on his own. He talked about Shiro. That yes, he couldn’t understand what the older one was going through right now, he probably wasn’t thinking rationally. But it still would have been nice to be treated with a minimum of respect.

He talked about Allura. How he had always known he was the problem. That he wasn’t good enough for her. But how it still hurt to get the confirmation.

The fluid was pushed into another set of tubes. Its colour had lightened up again, now resembling a dirty orange. He recapped the events from half a day ago. How helpless he had felt. How useless he had been. How Keith had practically died right in front of him.

The fluid stilled into a slow drop again collecting in a light, almost colourless mixture.

“…because when they came in I- By the time we landed I thought your hearth had already stopped a few minutes ago. And despite everything Shiro seems to believe, I _am_ trained for First Aid. I finished at the top of the class back at the garrison. So, by the time we landed I had already been at it for a few minutes and you just- Keith you- You wouldn’t breathe! And I didn’t know- I didn’t think I- I thought I had fucking let you die right underneath my fingers.“ He pressed his palms against his eyes.

“Sounds rough, buddy.”

Lance shot back and around so quickly, the pain of hitting his head against the healing pod registered a few seconds late. His _manly_ screech sounded _very masculine_. Very.

“Oh ah- I’m sorry! I just wanted to lighten the mood a bit, I didn’t know what else to say at this point? I’m sorry.” Keith was leaning against the pods opening, still looking a bit groggy.

Lance closed his eyes not believing what they saw. “Keith, what the hell.” Opening them again, yes, Keith was still there. “How long have you been standing there.”

“Ah, somewhere around the point of you ranting about Shiros stupid eyebrows? I’m not sure? The first few minutes were a bit… confusing.”

And that was so- so _Keith,_ Lance didn’t know what to feel. Disappointment, betrayal, embarrassment? Instead of deciding he started to cry.

“Oh uh, I- uh.” After a long minute filled with Lance’s sobs and Keith’s helpless noises, Lance felt a hand pressing down on his shoulder. Despite everything he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ay, mullet. You really aren’t good with words as soon as the topic doesn’t revolve around conspiracy theories, huh?” Lifting his head he sniffed again.

Keith carded one hand through his hair, keeping the other one atop Lance’s shoulder. “No, I ah- No. Thank you, Lance for uh, saving my live. I’m- Yeah, thank you.”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Keith. Come here.” And without thinking Lance pulled Keith into a tight hug. For a second, he wasn’t sure if it was welcome, if Keith would stay as rigid as he was right now. But then the smaller one relaxed and returned the hug just as forcefully. Lance whispered a silent ‘Thank you’ into Keiths neck, in return he was crushed against the warm chest even tighter.

Lance had to force himself to let go. He couldn’t remember the last time somebody had hugged him with such intent. Yeah, usually the team came together to celebrate after a successful mission, but it was always more of a group thing and didn’t last long. A long hearty hug felt very, very good after the stress of the last day.

Looking up he recognised Keiths by now fairly familiar smirk. He narrowed his eyes. “What.”

The smirk intensified. “You won’t forget our bonding moment this time, right? I’m pretty sure there are security cameras all around us, so, you won’t be able to deny it.”

“Oh my _god_!”, he groaned. “Don’t. Just, don’t. This is already embarrassing enough, don’t remind me of the other time.”

“So you _do_ remember!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!”

After checking that Lance hadn’t accidentally released Keith prematurely from the pod they huddled together on the blankets. Keith wanted to know every little detail on what had happened after he fell unconscious. He promised to ask Red how she had operated on her own. They still had to cut their conversation short, though. Keith had gotten out much earlier than anticipated and they thought it best to call Coran to get him checked out. Just to make sure.

By the time the yawning man and his mortifying nightgown let them go, three a.m. had come and gone. They stumbled more than walked towards their quarters, Keith still groggy from the pod and Lance operating on only a few hours of sleep.

When it was time to split up Lance found that he didn’t want to. And because this new day had only been good to him up ‘til now, he didn’t even hesitate before asking. “Do you want to come to my room? I’d like to keep talking for a bit, if you don’t mind. We could have a… sleep over.” He tried not to cringe.

Keith smiled softly. “Yeah, I- I’d like that.”

And as easy as that (after a few minutes spent changing into pyjamas and shifting around in the small cot to find a comfortable sleeping position for the both of them) Lance found himself warm and cosy next to Keith in bed. His opposite didn’t seem to be able to contribute more than a few mumbled syllables at a time to their conversation, though. Lance let it drift of completely after he recognised Keiths steady breaths for what they were.

For a few minutes he kept his body still, trying fall asleep as well. No success. Huffing frustrated he looked over at the sleeping form besides him. Keith looked peaceful. And warm.

Slowly turning onto his side he shifted closer to the body now in front of him. When Keith didn’t wake up, he pressed his face down against the strong shoulder, shifting even closer until their upper bodies touched. Keith mumbled something unintelligible and turned his face towards Lance, burying his nose in brown curls. Lance closed his eyes. A warm feeling flooded his chest prompting a huge smile to take over his face.

He fallowed Keith into a deep dreamless sleep.

* * *

Time had become a bit wobbly for Lance. There was so much going on with Zarkon, the wormholes and the robobeasts, he didn’t really have time to question anything else going on. By the time he had stumbled into Keiths room for the third time in a row after a nightmare instead of going to an empty room to scream, he realised that he liked sleeping next to him a lot more. And when Keith woke him for the second time in the middle of the night climbing into his bed still shaking, he decided that they needed To Talk.

He was so nervous and unsure and for some reason quite embarrassed about the whole ordeal that he couldn’t recall all of it afterwards. Only bits and pieces, like:

“Keith, _don’t_ say it.”

“What? I am not allowed to say that we-“

“Keith, I swear to _god_ -“

“-cuddled?”

“Ay dios, no! Don’t ever say that again, we did not-“

“You were practically curled up on my chest, like a small kitten-“

“Ah, really?! Just like you were three days ago?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Ha, see! That- _What_? My god, is _nothing_ embarrassing to you?”

“No. I am very self-confident in my masculinity.”

Or:

“No, mine is bigger.”

“No, mine.”

“ _No_ , mine.”

“No _, mine_.”

“ _Argh!_ Why can’t you- Alright, Lance, I don’t care! If you say your window is the bigger one, so be it! Your room it is. Congratulations, you win.”

“I told you I would. I have four siblings and _twenty-three_ cousins.”

“That’s just… unfair.”

And, most memorably:

“But isn’t it… um?”

“Isn’t it what? Say it.”

“Isn’t it, a bit, gay?”

“Oh my god. Lance, _I_ am gay. Sharing a bed, doing nothing is _not_ gay.”

“Uh oh, congratulations? Shoot, I meant _, thank you_ for telling me?”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“What? Of course not! We’re living in the 23rd Century. _I’m_ bi, it’s just…“ 

“Just what?”

“Are you one hundred percent _sure_ that you are gay?”

“Oh my _god_ , Lance, what the hell? I am going to leave-“

“What, no! De madre. I don’t- I didn’t mean it that way, just- hear me out. Ninety percent of the student population back at the Garrison were _convinced_ that you and Rebecca were like ‘ _a thing’_. There was an _enormous_ betting pool. I _have_ money _in_ that betting pool.”

“Rebecca who?”

“Por dios, Rebecca Addams? The pretty blond girl from Mechanics one-o-one? She was sitting _right next_ to you for at least two semesters.”

“Um I don’t- Oh! Her! I picked up her books one time after she run into me, we didn’t have _a thing_. That’s just… ridiculous!”

“Fudge, I should have known; you never could have landed her. You just cost me a hundred fifty quid.”

“One _hundred_ and fifty- _what_? Lance, what the _fuck_?”

“Language.”

All in all The Talk had been, Lance thought, a huge success.

After, sleeping next to each other became a habit. They usually spent the night in Lances room as _he really did have_ the bigger window and both of them liked to watch the ever shifting stars while falling asleep. Also, Keith’s room was sad. Lance had bought a new game console at the space mall, but he had also collected little trinkets from every planet they had visited so far. A little shell from here a small Balmera crystal from there. He thought it made his room a lot homier. Keith’s in comparison was a barren _wasteland_.

Lance had gotten used to waking up against a warm body, arm snug around Keith’s hips. He liked the way Keith’s nose pressed against his neck whenever it was the other way around. He didn’t mind being woken by nightmares every other night - either his or Keith’s it didn’t matter. Keith never asked about how Lance held him even tighter after startling awake, in return he didn’t question Keith mumbling about ‘Dad’ or ‘Shiro’. If somebody wanted to talk, they would initiate it themselves. The bed began to feel like a safe haven again.

Today was one of the good days. Both of them had slept undisturbed through the night. Lance was woken by Keiths unruly hair tickling his nose as the other started to get out of bed. No, not today mister, today was Lances day! If he wanted to sleep until noon, they would sleep until noon. Grumbling protests he tightened his hold around Keith.

“Lance, let go.” Whispering hurriedly Keith fought to get free. “Hey! I need to pee.”

“Mhm, five more minutes.”

“I don’t have five minutes, let go!”

Lance chuckled as Keith dashed into the adjourned bathroom as soon as he slipped his grip. Rolling over into the warm spot he had left behind Lance tried to go back to sleep, when suddenly the blanked was ripped off him.

“Ay! Keith, give it back, its cold!”

“No, you promised we’d try Simulation Level Six again first thing in the morning.”

Remembering his hasty promise from the day before to convince Keith to let him apply one of his face masks Lance groaned and rolled onto his back. No sleep until noon then. Promises did outrank Birthdays, probably. “I hate you.”

“I don’t care. Now get up and get ready. We need to grab breakfast.”

Finally getting up Lance exclaimed. “You just want to grab the last of the chocolate chips before Pidge steals them.”

“Chocolate chips are not a healthy breakfast.”

“Oh really, says the guy who spend a year in the desert living off canned beans and chocolate bars.”

“They were called _protein_ bars.”

“ _Sure_ they were.”

Quarter of an hour later Lance started the simulation as Keith licked his fingers to get rid of the last chocolate crumble.

Instantly the room around them transformed. Ceiling, walls and floor darkened until it looked like they were deep down a dark cave. Huge blocks extended from openings in the wall and floor making the illusion complete. The countdown started.

“Ready?” Keith asked as if they still had any choice in the matter.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. But don’t shout at me when we fail again.”

“We won’t fail!”, he answered right as the countdown reached zero.

Small hatches opened all over the high ceiling, dropping bots that instantly hid behind the blocks after touching down on ground. Aiming at a robot arm pocking out behind one of them Lance knew: This would be a huge disaster.

Surprisingly, it was not.

It was only a minor disaster.

Their mission parameters were to go deeper into the ‘cave’ to extract an artefact. Afterwards they had to fight two waves of sentries and make their way out of the cave. Over the last couple of weeks they had managed to extract the artefact, to defeat the robots or to escape the cave. They just hadn’t been able to accomplish all three of those things together. It was _maddening_.

Lance was quickly getting over this stupid level and had been all but begging Keith to skip it and try their luck on the next one. Scenario Seven would be completely different and totally unrelated. But Keith wouldn’t let them. He was adamant to ‘beat each and every one of these damn training sequences, even if it is be the last thing I do.’ Lance had told him that he really needed other hobbies.

Today they had a good run. The extraction room was the second one they checked, the first wave wasn’t as bad as it could have been, the second one was worse, but they managed alright.

Lance thought they could make it. He shot one of the bots right between the eyes as he jumped over another one Keith had taken down seconds before. They turned around the second to last corner - they hadn’t ever made it this far with the artefact still intact - when Keith suddenly stopped in front of him.

“What are you-“, Lance cut himself off with a shocked sound as he saw a third wave of robots right in front of them. “Why are there- ay dios! There haven’t ever been three waves, why are there now?!”

“I don’t know, just take them out!”

And taking them out Lance did. He had spent every single one of his training hours over the last _three weeks_ in this cave system. He had most of the sentries hiding spots memorised. Not even the bad lightening could diminish his accuracy as he took out the bots anymore. Keeping Keith in his peripheral vision he aimed at the boots further away from them. The exit was right around the next corner, they didn’t even have to eliminate all of them.

Lance really thought they could make it.

That thought of course marked the second everything went haywire.

Suddenly the bots changed their tactics. Over the last couple of minutes they had managed to separate the two of them and were now cornering Keith specifically. He was the one with the artefact and their programming was probably making a last ditch effort to turn this operation around again.

Lance really, really didn’t want that to happen. He would _not_ , under _any_ circumstances repeat this Level for a _twentieth_ time.

Quickly he aimed at the retreating bots nailing nearly all the headshots perfectly. Keith was slowly but surely overrun by the huge number of enemies crowding him. Lance grit his jaw. They _would_ win this.

Disregarding each and every single Gun Safety Lecture he had ever had to endure, he stormed into the fray, still aiming for the heads. Grunting at the metallic elbows and knees knocking into him he reached for Keiths arm. He had to jump back as Keiths sword hurled around and almost hit him in the head, earning him another soon to bloom bruise as a bot hit him simultaneously in the back.

Quickly shooting the metallic offender he grunted: “Aim for the enemies, mullet, not for your teammate.” Not waiting for Keiths answer Lance swirled around again and shot over his head, one, two, three, four times. The bots went down in a flash and finally Lance could see the exit line right behind them. They just needed to _go_.

Keith had realised that too. He started to sprint even before Lance had shouted “ _Run!_ ”, taking down one of the bots trying to cut off their escape. Lance turned around following backwards as he tried to hold them off.

The instant he noticed the metallic fist flying towards his head, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to react fast enough. Then, a second before it would have connected, his whole body was pulled back harshly, practically swiped clean off his feet. Twisting mid-air so he wouldn’t knock himself out on the floor he crashed into Keith, who had obviously yanked him harder than he had meant to. After colliding with each other, they hit the floor hard.

Staring into Keiths eyes breathing frantically, everything Lance could think about was that they _would have to do this again_. Closing his eyes he reached to take of his helmet, needing to breathe. Deed done, he opened them again and saw that Keith had had the same thought, forehead now pressed against the cold floor. Lance was so, _so_ frustrated.

A second later, shockingly, the room wasn’t lit up in the hatefully familiar red, but a bright green. Accompanied by the Altean letters equivalent to ‘Mission Success’. Lance _screamed_.

“Wepa! Ave María Purísima, we did it! I can’t believe it, we finally did it!” Instinctively he tackled Keith, pressing his face against the others neck as best as he could, with both of them still in the bulky armour.

It hadn’t been perfect, not by far. There were still too many hick-ups, near misses or just communication failures between them to have won this kind of fight out in the real world. Lance knew he had a long way to go if he actually wanted to survive this war. But this was a step forward. A big one.

This was a win. And he was damn well going to celebrate it.

He was grinning stupidly against Keiths sweaty skin.

Keith, having absorbed most of their fall, was still breathing hard but mumbled some happy sounding words into Lance’s hair. Then after a few seconds of panting he went to loosen the hug and probably stand up right away, that maniac. But Lance didn’t want to let go yet. They had finally beaten this stupid level. They had spent literal _days_ in here. “Oh no, you denied me my cuddling rights this morning already, you will pay me back right now and stay here and celebrate this unprecedented success with me.” Slinging his arm around Keith even firmer he rolled onto his back pulling him effectively on top of him.

“Lance, let me up, I’m hot.” Trying to sit up Keith pressed his hands to the floor next to Lance’s head. “Also, since when are we allowed to refer to it as ‘cuddling’ without you falling into a crisis?”

It took Lance a few seconds to respond, because ‘ _crisis’_? Lance had not under any circumstances had a crisis the last time they had had this discussion. It was just that actually sharing a bed with the person you had considered to be your biggest rival - your _nemesis_ – was weird and had taken a little getting used to. Sorry not sorry. Lance would really have liked to tell Keith that as well. Right into his stupid smug face. But… said face was really close. Like really, really close and for some reason that seemed to affect Lances ability to form coherent sentences.

His lips had gone dry. He licked them reflexively. “You do realise what you just said right? ‘I’m hot’? Very arrogant of you. I wouldn’t have thought you the type, mullet.”

Having found his voice again Lance couldn’t help but grin at Keiths over the top eyeroll, which didn’t succeed in hiding his smirk at all. “Whatever.”

Lance leaned up a bit, trying to get Keith to look at him, so he would _actually listen_ for once in his _sad, joyless_ life. “No! Not whatever! Stop busting my adrenalin rush! We-“ Lance stuttered as Keiths eyes flicked down a second before meeting his eyes again. His voice went dry. “ We _fricking_ did it. We beat the level! Keith, you are- _we_ are amazing!”

“You, yeah-“, Keith cleared his throat. “Yeah, we are amazing.”

They stared at one another. Then, again but almost hesitant, Keith went to get up again. Reflexively, arms still wrapped around his sides, Lance pressed him even closer. This time his own eyes flicked down.

Keiths swallowed visibly. Looking down at Lance, leaning the tiniest bit closer he whispered: “Lance, can I-“

Later, Lance wouldn’t be able to recall what exactly had happened. Everything he knew was that one moment they were lying on the floor intertwined in one another, close but not _close enough_. Everything Lance could see were dark grey eyes and too dry lips – _because he never used the chapstick Lance had given him, that idiot_ \- and everything he could think about was _‘we should be even closer’_. And then, a millisecond later, they were. Eyes now closed, lips touching - _slow, gentle, hesitant_ \- Lance’s thoughts were pure _ecstasy_.

This kiss, this _moment_ was what they had been heading towards inevitably. And they both knew it. Honestly, Lance was surprised that it had taken them this long to get here. This was just the next logical step.

Feeling content, grinning like stupid, he pulled back after a few seconds, resting his head on the floor again. But Keith didn’t let him go. He followed him down slotting their mouths together once more, this time not as soft and innocent as it had been before, but with force, with _intent_. His hands grabbed at Lance’s hair, nails digging into his scalp. Lance had to stifle a groan. Keith still must have noticed, grinning as he was, that sucker. Retaliating Lance let one of his hands slide down a little, resting on Keith’s lower back, pressing him even closer. Keith didn’t even try to suppress his groan. _Oh, somebody is needy._ Lance snickered, finally breaking their kiss, breathing hard.

“Shut up.” Keith was grinning down at him, breathing similarly messed up.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

Lance _couldn’t stop_ smiling and signed as Keith rested his face against his neck, hands now carding through his hair. After a few silent moments he mumbled, almost too silent to understand. “Well, Happy Birthday to me, I guess.”

Keith froze. Just for an instant, before lifting his body up to look down on Lance. “Today is…”, trailing off he furrowed his brows questioningly.

“I mean, approximately. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Somewhere on earth my- uh- family is probably throwing a bomb-ass 18th birthday party right now.” Voice breaking a little at the thought of his family – _Luis Marco Veronica Rachel Abuela Mom they are happy they are save they are alive_ \- Lance tried to hide his face, turning away, warm cheeks pressing against the cold rubber floor. For a second, he thought Keith would the moment pass. Then there were gentle lips pressing against his temple.

“I bet they are.” Another kiss. “I bet they are.”

Eyes pressed shut, Lance let his face be pulled back again. After one more kiss he opened them, staring back at Keith.

“How about- How about we throw our own private party tonight? We could have a sleepover on the star deck, if you want?”

Lance had to choke back a sob. This was just so, so _not_ Keith. Thoughtful, caring, _compassionate_. But at the same time it _was_. He could see right in front of him as his expectations about and his experiences with Keith overlapped, combined, melted together. Revealing a new Keith. The real Keith.

“Yeah. Yeah, I would like that.”

One more kiss, the first of many to come. “It’s a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I am not an English, nor a Spanish native speaker, feel free to correct me. Feel free to comment on anything else as well!  
> Or just leave a little Kudos if you liked this story.  
> Thanks a lot, have a lovely day!


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